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Summary: In a clinical trial in Europe, generic meds and low-tech tools produce good results while bringing costs down.

By Nancy Josephson Liff | Posted: August 27, 2013

A simpler and cheaper alternative to high-priced fertility treatments may finally be on the horizon.

The new IVF procedure, currently in clinical trials in Europe, costs only a few of hundred dollars, compared with the thousands of dollars U.S. couples typically spend for a single in vitro fertilization.

Currently, American couples pay an average of $12,000 for a typical IVF procedure at a private facility.

Fees can run as high as $15,000 or more per treatment, or as low as $10,000. According to an Associated Press report that ran in USA Today, the new IVF could be done for about $265 per cycle.

The drastically reduced fee reflects a finding coming out of a clinical trial taking place in Belgium. There, doctors have been able to achieve good results without using pricey brand-name drugs and expensive state-of-the-art equipment. The pared-down approach gives women a chance to use generic meds to stimulate their ovaries to release more than one egg per cycle.

In conventional IVF, mamas-to-be receive injections of powerful medicines that can produce upwards of 20 eggs per cycle, the news source reported.

The simpler option lets doctors swap out expensive ($60,000) incubators used for one phase of the treatment in exchange for test tubes and a heating block to create an environment suitable for fertilization.

In the ongoing study, a group of women who were 36 years old and younger received a "mild dose" of fertility drugs via an injection.

Among those who produced at least eight eggs in a given cycle, half underwent standard in vitro fertilization, while the rest were assigned the simpler method.

Of the 100-plus women treated so far, the news source reported, the pregnancy rate was about 34 percent for both the traditional method and the simplified treatment. Fourteen babies were born using the low-tech option, versus 13 for the high-priced one.

While researchers said that individuals with more complicated issues (such as too few eggs or extreme problems with male fertility) may find traditional treatment a wiser option, there's a bigger concern for American couples.

The technique is currently being targeted for use in developing countries. In those locations, parents-to-be often have limited resources to combat fertility problems, the news source noted. In addition, in developing nations, married couples often feel intense pressure to produce children quickly, even after only a month or two of marriage.

On the plus side, though, there is some support for making cheaper techniques more widely available.

Geeta Nargund, medical director for Create Health Clinics, a private fertility center in London, told the news source, "You should not have to be rich just to have IVF. There are so many people who cannot afford the treatment (in the West) that there would be huge demand if there were something cheaper available."

With the World Health Organization suggesting that as many as 120 million to 160 million couples struggle with infertility, there seems to be little doubt that more and more Americans would opt for "simpler and cheaper" if it were available.

Assuming it could take up to three cycles to hit the jackpot, why shell out over $30,000 if you can get great results for under $1,000?

How much have you spent on fertility treatments? Have you ever said no to IVF because it's just too expensive?